Bucky hadn't been feeling well for a few days, but he was a soldier. He was a Supersoldier.He didn't get sick. The Russian doctors made sure of that. Until last wednesday, he wasn't even sure if he was still able to. But it had been getting continually worse. This morning he had woken up with a fever, a high one as far as he could tell. His vision swam in front of his eyes. He swung his legs over the side of the bed. He was so, so cold. He somehow made it to the dresser, and pulled on sweatpants and a thick thermal shirt.
The room was spinning, sweat dripping off of him. He barely made it to the kitchen, and reached up to the cabinet to get a glass of water. It was his luck that his apartment cabinets weren't very solid. As he balaced himself, the entire cabinet pulled from the wall. Glasses crashed down around him as he fell, and the room went black. "Shit" he thought as he descended into darkness. "I'm vulnerable this way."
Joy was leaving her apartment when she heard a loud noise from the apartment next door, followed by the sounds of breaking glass, and a distinct "thud." All followed by silence.
She had met the man who lived next door once or twice. He was quiet but polite, with long brown hair and brooding eyes. He would nod at her in the hallway. She was pretty sure he lived alone. In fact, he always seemed to be alone. So she was a little concerned when she didn't hear any noise come from next door for a few moments.
She knocked timidly on his door, the louder, until finally she was pounding on it. She heard nothing. She was about to go find the building superintendent, when the door opened. She looked down. Her neighbor had dragged himself to the door and was now bleeding next to her wingtip shoes. He was cut up from broken glass, sweaty as all getout, and holding a gun. "What the fuck?" she yelped, jumping out of the way. He looked at her, looked at the gun, and confusedly let it drop to the floor.
"Oh my God. Are you all right?" Joy asked him, nudging the gun away and dropping to her knees near him. She was going to be late for work, but screw it. Her boss would understand.
"I'm… I don't know."
"What's your name?"
He looked at her suspiciously before replying. "Bucky."
She raised her eyebrows. "Okay then, B. What the hell happened?" She asked him. She felt his forehead. It was burning up. "Holy shit. Okay, lets get you back into the house. Hang on"
Joy ran down the hallway to where her friend Cleo lived. Cleo was older than she was, and worked as a forklift operator. "Cleo, I need your help. The guy in 106 is… all kinds of fucked up. I need help moving him." Cleo followed her back to Bucky's apartment.
He staggered to his feet and they helped him to the sofa, then Joy went back to her apartment to get a thermometer. His temperature registered 103 degrees. "Shit, man, we need to get you to a hospital. You're fever is WAY high and you're bleeding all over the place."
He grabbed her before she could move or grab her phone. "No hospitals. No doctors." He stared into her eyes, pleading with her. "Please. No hospitals. No doctors."
She nodded. "We need to break your fever." She ran into the bathroom and began running cold water in the tub. She could hear Cleo in the livingroom. "You really managed to trash your kitchen, dude. You pulled the cabinet off of the wall."
Joy came back out. "We need to get him in the bath. His fever is too high." She looked pointedly at Bucky. "If you die because we didn't take you to a hospital, I will be seriously pissed off. Forever."
The room was still spinning, faster now. Bucky thought he was going to be sick. And then he was. Luckily the floors were wood. "Oh gross." Cleo grimaced.
"No hospitals. No Doctors." He kept repeating it. The two women each got him under an arm and dragged him into the bathroom, pushing him ungracefully into the tub, which was now full of cold water. He started as soon as his body hit the water. They held him down.
"It'll cool you. Stop fighting us!" Joy yelled at him. Bucky stopped, very aware that it wouldn't take much for him to seriously harm these two women.
Cleo went back into the livingroom to clean up the vomit, and start to sweep up broken glass. Joy reached for the hem of Bucky's shirt and began to lift it over his head. He stopped her.
"I'm not getting fresh with you. Seriously. Take it off. You're chest deep in a tub full of water. And I need to bandage your arms. You're bleeding."
"I don't know what that means…" a wave of nausea and dizziness washed over him again, and he gave up, letting her pull his shirt up over his head.
"Oh my God." Joy's eyes widened as she took in this strange man's body. The entirety of his left shoulder, arm, and hand were made of metal. "Cleo, get your ass in here!" She yelled.
Cleo came in and stopped short at the door. "What the fuck?"
Joy turned to look at Cleo, her green eyes misting over. "I know why he doesn't want to see a doctor. I think he was… some sort of expirament."